Joao Palhinha became the latest Spurs player to secure 2026 World Cup qualification as prolific Portugal recorded a 9-1 win over Armenia on Sunday afternoon.
Knowing victory would confirm their place at next summer's major tournament, Joao watched on as his nation turned on the style - despite an early scare when Renato Veiga's early opener was cancelled out by Eduard Spertsyan - to lead 5-1 at half-time through Goncalo Ramos, a Joao Neves brace and a Bruno Fernandes penalty.
Neves and Fernandes went on to complete their hat-tricks in the second half and substitute Francisco Conceicao added the ninth in injury time to equal Portugal’s record goals tally in a single match and their second-best result in history - behind a 9-0 win over Liechtenstein in 2023.
Joao remained an unused substitute in Porto as his country qualified for a seventh successive World Cup with the next edition to be played across USA, Canada and Mexico.
Staying with WCQ in Europe, Djed Spence and Guglielmo Vicario experienced contrasting fortunes as they remained on the bench with England and Italy respectively.
Djed was in the squad for the Three Lions' trip to Albania where our record goalscorer Harry Kane took his international tally to 78 with a late brace to come away with a 2-0 win over a stubborn home side in Tirana.
It also completed a flawless qualifying campaign for England who became the first European side this century to qualify for a major tournament with a 100 per cent record and no goals conceded.
Over to the San Siro in Milan, Vic's nation were already guaranteed a play-off place ahead of the visit of group leaders Norway and even had a chance - albeit slim - of qualifying automatically if they pulled off a nine-goal victory on the night.
It started promisingly when Francesco Esposito gave them the lead after 11 minutes in a dominant first half but Norway responded after the break and goals from Antonio Nusa, two from Erling Haaland and Jorgen Strand Larsen condemned the Azzurri to next year's play-off rounds in March.